• The MAINE SONGWRITERS ASSOCIATION released some big news lately. The long-time free membership of the MSA will be broken into tiers starting August 1. Standard membership will continue to be free and get you a profile page on the Web site. Yearly membership dues of $20 a year, meanwhile, allow you to play the MSA showcases that happen each week, plus get you discounts on songwriting workshops (we'll get to that). Finally, lifetime memberships are a one-time $200 payment, get you into everything for free, and get your names in some special places. New president BOB MCKILLOP is charged with leading the organization into the not-all-free future. JUD CASWELL leads the group's next workshop, where can get songwriting tips from a guy who's got trophies sitting on his mantle from many of the major songwriting contests out there. It's May 16 at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Pleasant Street in Brunswick.

• AUTHENTIK ARTISTS, the label that recently released the new work by GRAHAM ISAACSON, will re-release PETE KILPATRICK's Hope in Our Hearts on April 21, to a nationwide distribution base. Dude's already sold more than 17,000 discs independently. Who knows what he can do with a little label support? Pete doesn't have a bad winter gig, either, as he's been touring ski resorts with EVE 6, TEA LEAF GREEN, and the WAILERS.

• We've had a HACHE sighting in New Orleans.

• BEBE BUELL is no longer a Portland-area resident. She and husband JIM WALLERSTEIN have moved back to NYC. No worries, though, you can still check out Bebe's new single atwww.bebebuell.org. Worth a listen.

PORTLAND MUSIC NEWS: MAY 22, 2009 | May 20, 2009 Even more RON HARRITY : BIRD IN THE RAFTERS will release their debut disc, recorded with Harrity last year, with a show June 13 at SPACE Gallery. They're calling it Jetlag and it will feature, among other things, a book oscillator invented by COMPUTER AT SEA 's GALEN RICHMOND . No, we don't know what a book oscillator is, either.

PORTLAND MUSIC NEWS: APRIL 17, 2009 | April 16, 2009 Two big shows to watch coming up: That TOWER OF SONG we've been telling you about got approval from the City Council to put on a big festival May 23. So that's on.

PORTLAND MUSIC NEWS: APRIL 10, 2009 | April 08, 2009 We have a tentative street date for cheek-metal purveyors PIGBOAT 's new album, Float: April 21, with a release show later that week, April 25, at Geno's